HBO Max Shares First Footage From ‘The Pitt’ Season 2: “And So It Begins”

HBO Max has released the first footage from The Pitt season two via a teaser trailer showing some of the emergencies and characters treating them that viewers can expect on the Max original’s July 4th weekend-set second installment.

The preview confirms the return of Katherine LaNasa’s charge nurse Dana Evans, shown sharing a look with Noah Wyle‘s Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, after she said at the end of a grueling 15-hour day in season one that she was quitting. Fellow beleagured character Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball), who Robby kicked out of the emergency room in season one after he discovered the physician was hiding that he had been using drugs, is also shown returning and looking around the hospital.

The preview also features a quick glimpse of new character Dr. Al-Hashimi, played by Sepideh Moafi, anxiously watching a procedure with Robby, and returning castmembers Supriya Ganesh (Dr. Mohan), Fiona Dourif (Dr. McKay), Taylor Dearden (Dr. King), Isa Briones (Dr. Santos), Gerran Howell (Whitaker) and Shabana Azeez (Javadi).

The clip begins with Robby walking into the ER, footage that seems reminiscent of the first-look photo released when production on season two began earlier this summer.

Another character at the desk, with Dana, says “the prodigal son returns.”

After brief glimpses of traumas, a patient struggling with restraints in an ambulance and a voiceover announcing a “tier one trauma ETA six minutes,” Robby is shown saying, “And so it begins.”

The compilation of rapid-fire clips also features police officers running through the halls, a baby squirming and a cast being cut off.

It ends on a lighter note as a nurse wonders aloud to Dr. Santos if they “do this every day.”

“If we’re lucky,” she says.

Though there’s no specific release date for season two, which appears to still be in production, HBO Max says it will return in January.

It was previously revealed that season two of The Pitt would take place 10 months after season one, over the July 4 weekend, giving Robby and the other characters some time to deal with the issues that emerged from the mass shooting and other incidents that took place in season one.

“When we come back a lot of story has transpired between our characters, and so we get a chance to catch up, whereas if we’d done the next day, everyone would still just be dealing with their PTSD and the grief about it, so we wouldn’t have as much story to tell,” creator and showrunner R. Scott Gemmill previously told The Hollywood Reporter. “And this just seemed like the best way to re-engage the audience and let them play a little bit of catch-up as they probably see some new faces.”

Beyond that, Gemmill teased of the July 4 time period, “There’s a holiday; there’s lots going on in the city, a lot of unique things to summertime that bring you into the ER, so we can tap into those with whatever we decide to do.”

And the summer setting was also born out of a practical concern, Gemmill said, since the series’ exterior filming happens in September.

Though LaNasa’s future on the show was up in the air at the end of season one, Wyle was jokingly noncommital and highlighted her importance to the series.

“Fan favorite Katherine LaNasa not come back? Come on now,” he told THR the week The Pitt‘s season one finale aired in April. “But, yeah, it happens. Who knows? Who knows?”

And he said that Robby also doesn’t want to “entertain a universe where she doesn’t come back.”

After Robby suffers a meltdown near the end of season one, Wyle and Gemmill have teased that the second season will feature him seeking treatment for his own trauma as well as a larger “journey of healing,” as Gemmill put it.

“I think the best thing that could have happened to his character was the meltdown, because until then, he wasn’t dealing with it,” Gemmill said. “If no one had seen the meltdown, he could probably go back to his own ways, which is again, denial and avoidance. But because Whitaker saw him, and then ultimately we learned that somebody else saw him, so that even Langdon knows about it, so at that point, Robby knows his secret is out and realizes that he has to come to terms and deal with this and part of this second season will be about seeing Robby and what steps he’s taking to deal with his past trauma, and even the most recent, the mass shooting, but part of it is his journey of healing.”

Wyle added, “So it’s really a question for season two: problem identified, season two treatment. Whether or not he buys into it, what mode he would buy into, what effect it would take — doctors don’t make the best patients. They’re really better at diagnosing problems. And we’re going to have a couple of doctors coming back and having to grapple with not only — Robby’s got [his mentor Dr.] Adamson [who died five years earlier during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic], but now everybody’s got Pitt Fest, so to a degree, everybody’s got an Adamson that they’re gonna have to contend with. So how he goes about getting help, how we depict a physician seeking or accepting treatment, how the rest of our practitioners, who’ve now been through this crazy experience, digest it and synthesize it in their own lives and careers, is going to be a big focus of season two.”

The Pitt, which racked up 13 Emmy nominations for its first season, is executive produced by Gemmill, Wyle, John Wells, Michael Hissrich, Erin Jontow and Simran Baidwan.